Is the spurious regression problem spurious?

So-called “spurious regression” relationships are generally accompanied by clear signs of residual autocorrelation. A conscientious researcher would likely re-estimate with an autocorrelation correction. Simulations indicate that resulting test statistics are close to true values, so do not yield spurious results.     

Monetary policy for an open economy: an alternative framework with optimizing agents and sticky prices

The 'new open-economy macroeconomics' seeks to provide an improvedbias for monetary and exchange-rate policy through the constructionof open-economy models that feature rational expectations, optimizingagents, and slowly adjusting prices of goods. This paper promotesan alternative approach for constructing such models by treatingimports not as finished consumer goods but rather as raw-materialinputs to the home economy's productive process. This treatmentleads to a clean and simple theoretical structure that has someempirical attractions as well. A particular small-economy modelis calibrated and its properties exhibited, primarily by meansof impulse response functions. The preferred variant is shownto feature a pattern of correlations between exchange-rate changesand inflation that is more realistic than provided by a morestandard specification. Important recent events are interpretedin light of the alternative models.     

Price level determinacy with an interest rate policy rule and rational expectations

This paper reconsiders a result obtained by Sargent and Wallace namely, that price level indeterminacy obtains in their model if the monetary authorities adopt a feedback rule for the interest rate rather than the money stock. It is shown that the indeterminacy vanishes if the interest rate rule is chosen so as to have a desired effect on the expected quantity of money demanded. This holds even if considerable weight is given, in the choice of a rule, to the aim of smoothing interest rate fluctuations.     

Monetary and Fiscal Theories of the Price Level: The Irreconcilable Differences

The fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL) has attracted muchattention but disagreement remains concerning its defining characteristics.Some writers have emphasized implications regarding interest-ratepegging and determinacy of rational expectations solutions,whereas others have stressed its capacity to generate equilibriain which price-level trajectories mimic those of bonds and differdrastically from those of money supplies. We argue that theFTPL attained prominence precisely because it appeared to providea theory whose implications differ greatly from conventionalmonetary analysis; accordingly we review monetarist writingsto identify the primary distinctions. In addition, we reviewrecent findings concerning learnability—and thereforeplausibility—of competing rational expectations equilibria.These indicate that when FTPL and monetarist equilibria differ,the latter are more plausible in the vast majority of cases.Under Ricardian assumptions, necessary for clear distinctions,theoretical analysis indicates that fiscal and monetary coordinationis not necessary for macroeconomic stability. Footnotes ¹ E-mail addresses: bmccallum{at}cmu.edu; edward.nelson{at}stls.frb.org     

Dating,discounting, and the robustness of the Lucas-Sargent proposition

From recent work by Thomas Sargent and others, it has become well known that, if expectations are formed rationally, monetary stabilization policy will be entirely ineffective in an economy in which the aggregate supply function relates output (relative to capacity) to the difference between the current price level and the value expected one period earlier. This paper considers whether this neutrality proposition holds when the expectation of some future price is compared with the current actual price in the supply equation. It is shown that the proposition remains valid if the future price is appropriately discounted.     

Monetary Policy in a Very Open Economy: Some Major Analytical Issues

This paper develops three considerations relevant to the possibility of modification of the Hong Kong currency board system for conducting monetary/exchange‐rate policy. The first concerns the system employed by Singapore, an economy similar in several ways to Hong Kong's, whereby the exchange rate is adjusted periodically in activist response to inflation and output developments. The second concerns a generalization, one that calls for adjustments of a weighted average of exchange rate and interest rate instruments, so designed to be effective whether the economy is, or is not, in a liquidity‐trap situation. Finally, the third topic concerns political‐economy aspects of policy, which tend to incline against the use of the activist systems.